Government made Enemalta borrow €75m - PL

The government last December made Enemalta borrow €75m which were then passed on to the government as funds due to it, PL finance spokesman Charles Mangion said in a statement.

He said this was one of the manouvres which the PL had predicted as the government struggled to achieve its deficit and debt projections.

Referring to NSO figures issued last week, Dr Mangion said that the government had projected a deficit of €217.6m for 2009, with the debt of the extended government growing by the same amount.

However, the debt of the extended government last year rose by €321m, equivalent to 5.6 per cent of GDP.

The government's own debt projects were off by €102m of 1.8% of GDP.

The government needed to explain how it ended up borrowing €102m more than it projected, Dr Mangion said.

The real government deficit was about 5.6% of GDP.